The Grand Exchange (abbreviated as GE) is a trading system for players to buy and sell almost all tradeable items. Members have eight grand exchange slots in which they may trade items, however free players are limited to three. Traders do not need to advertise, meet each other, or even wait at the Grand Exchange for their trades to complete.

All coins and items from fully and partially finished trades are collectible at any bank, but not at bank chests (excluding Shantay Pass, Burthorpe, Combat Academy, Clan Wars and Castle Wars lobby) and deposit boxes. Additionally, players will receive a message in their chatbox when the status of a trade offer is updated. Many players find it useful to sell items on the Grand Exchange rather than to a General Store, as the profit margin is much larger for useful items.

The Grand Exchange also refers to the location of this trading system, which is an official marketplace northwest of Varrock city. It was released on 26 November2007 and has since replaced the older marketplaces in Varrock and Falador cities. It is a popular place and usually crowded. The Grand Exchange received a graphical update on 9 August2011 giving it a brand new image and design, splitting the central booth into 4 separate booths, and adding a musician. The Grand Exchange received a second graphical update on 2 October2017, which kept the style of the previous update, but integrated the four booths back into one central booth.

Item sets

Most armour sets and the dwarf multicannon can be assembled into sets to save space. They behave like ordinary items except that they cannot be worn or used until they are disassembled. Only the Grand Exchange clerks can assemble and disassemble sets, and they will do this an unlimited number of times for free. Right-clicking a set and selecting "destroy" will not disassemble it. Players can also try to right click the banker and go to the sets.

Pricing

An NPC informant displaying the prices of certain weapons and armours. The cubes are item sets.

Price of Gnome Scarf over a 30 day period.

Jagex has never published the Grand Exchange's exact pricing algorithms, although there are some reasonable guesses. By using the laws of supply and demand, the prices of items are updated depending on its recently traded prices and volume. For items with low volume such as partyhats, their prices update every few days or even once a week. Jagex can also intervene and set the prices themselves, and they reserve the right to intervene when they believe price manipulation is occurring on an inexcusable scale.

Because of an update on 1 February2011, there are no longer price restrictions, however there are guide prices and an upper limit on how many of an item players can buy at once.

Trade restrictions

All trade restrictions are intended to reduce price manipulation, real-world trading, and/or unfair interactions between players with different levels. On the issue of price manipulation, Jagex said, "We are keen to keep a player-driven economy, so the prices are worked out using the supply and demand rules above. We will only intervene as a last resort, and only if we think price manipulation is going on, although the system has lots of safeguards to prevent that."[1] Trade restrictions are those safeguards. On 1 February all price (but not necessarily trade) restrictions were removed. Trial members had a trade restriction on the grand exchange of 50 of certain items. This prevented new accounts from being made simply to use the 6 Grand Exchange slots available to members, for merchanting/flipping.

Buying rate is restricted to a certain quantity every 4 hours.
Some items have a connected limit, meaning that players can only buy a certain amount of either item, or a mix of the two up to a particular point:

Metal armour (bronze through rune) share a limit of 100 between the pieces that make up the armour sets, although bronze through adamant platebodies have a separate limit of 500

Dragon armour shares a limit of 10 between all set pieces

Dragonhide armour of the same colour, including sets (although the sets have a limit of 100)

Treasure Trails armour that makes up a set shares a limit of 2

Barrows armour shares a limit between repaired pieces, broken pieces, and the item sets of the same brother's armour

All parts of godswords (swords, hilts, blades, shards)

Saradomin Swords and Zamorakian Spears

Both types of chinchompas

Enchanted and unenchanted gem-tipped bolts

All doses of the same kind of potion (with the exception of prayer renewal)

Any type of Godwars items (Bandos, Armadyl, Subjugation) has a trade limit of one every four hours. (Not Including Godswords)

Tradeable items that cannot be traded using the Grand Exchange

Some items cannot be traded using the Grand Exchange, but they can still be traded using the traditional player-to-player trade. The list includes:

Scamming

There continues to be much activity around the Grand Exchange as a main area for some players to operate scams, manipulate other players into giving away items or money and the age-old luring of players to areas they can be killed and their items taken.

Trivia

The jingle that plays when an offer is completed.

The jingle that plays when an offer is updated.

On 2 July2011 a huge rock appeared at the Grand Exchange. It had no use and it could not be examined or interacted with in any way. It was a teaser for the Clan Citadel update, and was removed when Citadels were added to the game.

If players attempt to set up a cannon in the Grand Exchange, Brugsen Bursen will tell players "My area is for peaceful trading. Play with your toy somewhere else!"

It is possible for the seller to buy their own item from the Grand Exchange, even after reaching the buy limit.

There are no items which start with the letter Q or X in the Grand Exchange.

There appears to be a training sword on the counter of the Grand Exchange buildings.

Examining any of the Grand Exchange pipes gives the message: "There seems to be a balled-up piece of purple paper stuck in there." It's a reference to the Ancient pages.

Before the Grand Exchange was added, most of the area was a giant forest behind the cobblestone fence now reduced west of the Grand Exchange. The Outlaw Camp was located a bit west of where Lucien's house used to be, and Lucien's house was located near the wall of Varrock Palace. Doorways previously unlocked here until becoming a wilderness song upon the release of RuneScape 3.

In late February2017, there was an ingame poll that asked players if the Varrock Grand Exchange should have one booth. The results were: One single booth - 49%; Leave as is 31%; I don't mind 19% (total number of votes 99,497)

The Grand Exchange underwent a rework at 2 October2017, merging the small booths from the corners, into a large, central booth.

Guides at the original Grand Exchange now reside in the four corners.

Since there are an uneven number of guides and an even number of corners, the Runes guide resides on the east side of the Grand Exchange, with a tree to the west, to keep symmetry.